True occurrences in Masters/PhD research unearthed...

These are true accounts accumulated from those whom I know of in the world of search and re-search…

• Don’t be surprised if you realized that you know more than your supervisors and they tell you that they cannot help when you encounter problems (especially those supervisors who do more paperwork and teaching than research). However, if they cannot even guide you verbally, then good luck!
  
• A paper was written and the student’s supervisor (an Asst. Prof.) deemed it as not up to standard for submission to a renowned journal (happened a few times). The best part is, the fed-up student eventually sent it out to an IEEE journal (without the supervisor’s knowledge) and it was accepted for publication. [Please DO NOT try this for you may get into serious trouble! The supervisor initially requested for the student’s candidature to be terminated but luckily it was resolved with the help of the student’s co-supervisor.]
  
• Another student wrote a full first draft of a paper and was corrected by the main supervisor. Good news: This paper was published. Bad news: The student was named as the third author (after the main supervisor and co-supervisor). The best part is the co-supervisor has contributed nothing to this paper. [Especially in oral defense for a PhD student, you will be questioned if you have no papers with you as first author because it will be deemed that most work are done by the first author – is that your supervisor? This is the kind of ‘black sheep’ supervisor – unfortunately also an Asst. Prof. – I think Asst. Prof. needs a lot of recognition and papers, that’s why they compete with their students – unethical!]
  
• Some supervisors are just like your English teachers. They only know how to correct your sentence structures, grammatical and spelling mistakes when you asked them to help review your first draft. Technical contents – you just have to rely on yourself. Bad luck! [So any people with good command of English are capable of becoming your co-author(s).]
  
• Politics prevail everywhere. If your internal examiner do not like your supervisor and if he/she is unprofessional, then it is likely that the former will try to find all possible faults, note problems that aren’t really problems, and raise unimportant issues (especially if he don’t really understand your topic) in your submitted report/thesis and during your oral defense. [Again, good luck but usually you will be backed up by your supervisor in this debate-warfare. If you have done your part well, not much issue anyway.]
  
  There are still plenty of things that have happened time and again. If you experienced any of this sort and would like to comment, feel free to do so.